


The Healer Couldn't Stay

by Ghostinthehouse



Series: Numb Fingered Healer [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Childbirth, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Gen, Non Graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 07:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: Eve was screaming, and it burned in Crawly's ears.





	The Healer Couldn't Stay

Eve was screaming, and it burned in Crawly's ears. _Why must they suffer, Mother? Why?_ It tore through him and dragged out instincts woven into his very self, ones that he thought had been burned out when he Fell. He pressed his fingers harder and harder into his temples, tattoo twisting under the pressure. _Heal. Heal. You are my Healer. Do something! Come up with something!_

"I'm going down there," he said abruptly.

The angel stared at him. "We're only observers!"

"Do you see anyone else out here to help? One single, solitary, other person?" Crawly didn't, couldn't, wait for a reply.

Healing as a demon, he discovered, was like trying to pick things up with numb fingers. He knew what to do, and his hands moved accordingly (sometimes slowly, sometimes barely enough) but sensations he was used to relying on weren't there. He couldn't feel what was wrong. He couldn't even feel what he was doing. But for the simple things like pain relief, knowing what to do was enough, and that much he could pull from memory.

It was a boy. She held him close and called him Cain as Crawly cleaned up the mess of blood and afterbirth that had come out too.

"I can't stay," he said softly. "I shouldn't even be here."

"That never stopped you before." Eve smiled wearily at him over Cain's head. "I understand, though. Thank you for coming anyway."

Crawly grimaced and left. Thanks was the wrong word when he'd never really had a choice in the matter.

***

The instincts to heal without the ability to sense what and how were a torment fiercer than anything Hell could have devised. He learned more mundane skills to compensate, the sort that one human could use on another. Herb-lore. Surgery. Midwifery. Massage. Chiropractic adjustments. Cleaning almost anything from anything else down to the bacteria and viruses humans hadn't discovered yet.

He honed his observation skills to pick up the causes and problems with senses other than the ones he'd lost. And he learned to hide the demonic aura of spookiness behind a shield of love around humans, and his instincts and skills behind a veneer of carelessness around demons (and one angel, though that slipped sometimes).

Demons didn't heal. Demons _couldn't_ heal, any more than they could love.

***

There were angels everywhere, mingling badly with all the humans. Crawly's skin, well, crawled, with the ethereal scent, and he tightened his shield down harder and looked frantically around for something, anything, that would get him off this crowded small-town street without drawing attention.

A man, desperation in his voice, begging for assistance for his wife caught Crawly's attention and he eased towards it. None of the angels took any notice. Of course they didn't, he sneered internally. Never ask why humans suffer, you might Fall, like the others, and we can't have that. Not that the humans were paying any more attention.

He placed his hand on the man's arm. Rough, cheap, cloth, battered and stained from travel. "Take me to her."

Relief, gratitude, and worry tumbled across the man's face. "You'll help? It's her first child...."

"Not the first time I've helped a woman birth a child," Crawly said, and the man practically dragged him round the corner and into a little stable off the packed inn yard. A stable, bless it all. Not even a bed, just a pile of straw. He glared at it and it instantly became extremely clean straw.

Still, even a stable got him out of sight and out of the way, and he could let his instincts run more freely. He made sure his hair was bound back out of the way and hidden under his scarf, then crouched beside the woman. She was very young for this, hardly more than a girl, and she reached out to him with a neediness that sent all his instincts roaring into life.

"Nobody told me it would be like this," she gasped. "He said... it was a blessing..."

Crawly steadied her, examining her as best he could, and looked at her husband.

"No," Her hands clenched on the folds of Crawly's robe as a pain came and went. "Not Joseph. Angel."

Crawly almost invented a score of new swear words on the spot. They died in his throat as the realisation hit him. This was probably the last place he should be hiding from the angels. This was probably why they were all here in the first place and any one of them would smite him down if they realised what he was. But then, neither could he just up and leave her here, since the angels were doing damn all to help. "Yeah, well, angel not doing the work, is he."

That brought a gasp of laughter from her, and he laid his hand across her back to ease the pain. "I got you. Ok?"

"Ah! Yes. Thank you. What do I call you?"

Crawly hesitated for a long moment. "Healer," he said at last, grabbing onto an old title that wouldn't give his current state away to the angels, and wouldn't hurt his ears and tongue the way that his old name did. "Just call me the Healer. No thanks necessary." He ducked his head to hide his eyes. "I'll make this as easy on you as I can, but..."

She nodded in new understanding and gritted her teeth.

When the baby eventually came, it was a boy. There was an eager rush of angelic footsteps outside, and some ancient instinct made Crawly snap, "We're not done yet!" in almost his old healer's voice, before he could stop himself. The footsteps stopped in a flurry of apologies, and Crawly breathed again, turning back to help with the afterbirth, and clean up the child.

The boy blinked up at him, newborn eyes meeting snake eyes without hesitation, and a tiny hand patted against Crawly's cheek before he got the boy wrapped up and in his mother's arms. "I can't stay," he said softly, bundling up the mess for disposal. "I shouldn't even be here."

"No one should get between a Healer and their patient," she replied. "I understand, though. I'm glad you came anyway."

Crawly gave her a grateful smile and risked miracling himself out of there and onto the hillside above the town. He buried everything, and sat eating an apple and listening to echoes of angelic song falling from the stars into his aching heart.

Down below, the angels pouring into the stable found no sign of lost Raphael, heard just moments before. Only Mary, cradling the baby Jesus, who looked up at them with awe and said, "The Healer couldn't stay."


End file.
